Production Designer William Creber Dies

At age 87, three-time Oscar-nominated Production Designer/Art Director William Creber died in Los Angeles on March 7th of complications from pneumonia after a prolonged illness. He was best known for his work on the original Planet of the Apes (1968) followed by Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971).

Production Designer/Art Director William Creber

Creber’s Oscar nominations came for his designer work on The Greatest Story Ever Told (1964), The Poseidon Adventure (1965) and The Towering Inferno (1975) for which he also received a BAFTA nomination. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy in 1964 for Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and was honored with an Art Directors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. Among his many additional credits are Islands in the Stream, Any Which Way You Can, Flight of the Navigator and the TV series Mod Squad. His last credit was for 2001’s The Last Brickmaker in America.

Creber is survived by his wife Sally Queen and son Ken Creber. Details for a memorial service will be announced soon.